explanations

This summer, it'll be 10 years since I graduated from college. I always assumed that, after this much time had passed, I'd be romanticizing my time there and wishing that I was back.

This is not the case.

It's not that I didn't have a good time at dear old Penn State University; I did. But I came to college, like many people I think, with great expectations:

I thought (hoped? assumed?) that I'd meet my true love there. Yes, I dated a few people, and even got engaged, but did not meet my husband until I came to New York.

I thought (hoped? assumed?) that my acting career would take off. I ended up having stomach problems, dropping out of the acting track in the second half of my junior year and switching to opera, which I did for two semesters but decided not to pursue. (I would've had to stay in school to get the credits for a minor in music, then applied to grad school. I wanted to graduate on time.)

I thought (hoped? assumed?) that I'd meet life-long friends there. Thanks to Facebook, I am in touch with lots of my college friends, but my best friends are my husband and Ruth, whom I met in elementary school.


So, no longings for college here ... though I wouldn't turn down a chocolate peanut butter milkshake at the Corner, or a black-and-white malt and sliders at Baby's. :)

If anything, I've become very nostalgic for high school these days. It probably started when I saw High School Musical, which I'm sure would be one of my FAVORITE. MOVIES. EVER. if I was a tween again.

In high school, my goals were simple: to star in a school play and have a boyfriend. In my senior year, I achieved both of those things. It didn't take a confluence of luck and timing and right-place, right-time and busting your hump to get those things going ... I did what I loved, and the rest, as they say, followed.

Imagine being able to achieve your dreams in your adult life! It happens to some people, obviously, but not for the great mediocre majority of us. The people I know who have gone places, who are strivers, have done so at the expense of other things that I want and have - namely, a spouse, child and stability.

I don't think that I wanted those things more than success; it's just that, for me, it was easier to obtain them. Perhaps if there had been a clearer path for me - if I'd pursued an English degree and had a chance to get a script supervisor position at a TV show, leading to a job as a staff writer on a sitcom, which is ALL I REALLY WANT, and it's NOT EVEN A VERY LOFTY GOAL - I would've made a different choice.

But it is what it is. I'm here, other people have had TV shows and book deals, and I'm annoyed and jealous and depressed and lazy about it all.

And if everyone around me was as lazy as I was, I wouldn't even be in this existential pickle, now would I? :)